SLOW MAN (2005)
QUOTE:
“I take this novel to be a scrutiny of disappointment and irresolution, a chicken-and-egg affair that does not yield satisfactory answers. . . . beautifully composed, deeply thought, wonderfully written” (New York Times)
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Slow Man, is a story of an old photographer who loses his leg in a bicycle accident, falls for a married caregiver, becomes a novel character for the writer Elizabeth Castello, but in the end rejects her companionship and prefers his helpless, lonely, miserable life. Is it this simple? No, Coetzee’s story is not that linear and simple. Slow Man is about a life story of loss, castration, disability, change, displacement, and of yearning for self wholeness through other. The title itself suggests the duality of meaning. “Slow Man” can be interpreted as a man who moves slowly due to amputated leg or as a man who undergoes a slow, graduate change in life ( one of the definitions of “slow” according to Websters Dictionary Online as adjective is “ requiring a comparatively long time for growing, changing“).
Hence, Slow Man is a story of yearning for whole self. The repressed anxiety from castration of masculine power due to the loss of the leg makes Paul not only feel disabled but seek a displacement. According to Freud, “Displacement is caused by repression of deeper, unconscious impulses or buried memories from a desire or a trauma.” The term, “return of the repressed” leads to reaction-formations or substitute-formations,” and thus, Paul unconsciously seeks a substitute for his loss of ability in finding love and becoming a godfather for Diego and Marijana’s family. Later, as Paul loses Maijana or his hope to get love from a married woman with children, he writes a letter to Marijana’s husband begging to become a godfather for their family and support Diego’s educational costs. It is thus, vivid that the loss of his leg evoked unconscious desire to replace it with love or with becoming a “mighty” godfather to gain sense of wholeness. “His affection for his married-with-children nurse accompanies an intense retrospection prompted by his new physical condition” (Hooper Brad).
The desire of self wholeness depicts Lacanian explanation of the Mirror Stage during which human (Lacanian child) upon seeing his image in the mirror realizes the perception of self as being separated and thus alienated. The acknowledgement of being fractured and divided, makes him long for self wholeness. “Because its sense of self is only ever garnered from identifying with the images of these others (or itself in the mirror, as a kind of other), Lacan argues that it demonstrably belongs to human to desire-directly-as or through another or others” (Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Thus, Paul’s repressed desire for ideal self makes him unconsciously search for the “other” and displace the lack with a substituted other. There was a passage in the story that explicitly denoted Paul’s rejection to look into the mirrors which he covered with drape:
“He himself has never been at ease with mirrors. Long ago he draped a cloth over the mirror in the bathroom and taught himself to shave blind. One of the more irritating things the Costello woman did during her stay was to take down the drape. When she left he at once put it back.”
I have thought a lot about the role of Elizabeth Costello and her sudden, unexpected, and not even well explained appearance in the novel. Was she indeed a writer who came to stay with Paul to write about his life? Does Coetzee with her appearance suggest the relationship existing in between the writer and the character as to who has the authority and how important the writer’s intent is? Are Paul and Costello indeed in writer-character relationship? Plato argued that the writer mimics the reality, and then Paul as a photographer also used to mimic the reality. Did then Costello appear to take over the “task” after Paul’s disability? Isn’t it the “rule” of life one takes over the other in the life journey and with this change/displacement life and history continues on? Wasn’t this the same idea under the main theme of retelling Crusoe’s story with a change and displacement, and thus, bringing back the past, the old order to show its displacement with the new?
The reoccurrence of Costello in Coetzee’s novels, the repetitions of different scenes and situations as well as the reoccurrence of sentences, numbers, and passages word by word in almost all of Coetzee’s books indicate the notion of archetype: “a pattern or model that serves as the basis for different, but related, versions of a character, plot, or a theme. In literature, certain characters, images, plots, and themes keep recurring. These recurring patterns are called archetypes. They serve as basic models to which specific cultural details are added. Archetypes are universal and timeless symbols that are so powerful that they change
a bit and reappear in different forms in other types of literature”(Literary Terms). Hence, reoccurrence presents the “universal and timeless symbols”- a symbol that denotes the continuum search for truth and for self.
Hence, Slow Man is a story of our reality, of our search for truth and for self identity through a long path of castration/loss, sense of fragmentation, and thus desire for wholeness which is repressed and displaced through a substitute “other.” This is the story of slow change of human life and desires and human search for self fulfillment.
~ KY
Works Cited
Hooper, Brad. “Coetzee, J. M. Slow Man.” Booklist July 2005: 1875+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Nov. 2011.
“Introduction to Sigmund Freud, Module on Repression.” CLA Purdue. Psychology. Web. 14 Nov. 2011.
“Jacques Lacan.” Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A peer-Reviewed Academic Resource. Web. 14 Nov. 2011.
“Literary Terms 9th grade.” PDF. Web. 13 Nov. 2011.
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Elucidating Coetzee's World and Works 